Connections
Group Exhibition
Connections:
Art, Teaching, Life
George Paton Gallery, Melbourne
18-28 November 2014
Most artists who teach experience tension when trying to balance their teaching, art making, and family lives. Through this research exhibition, approximately 30 new Visual Art and Design teachers explore how these aspects of their daily lives can connect, rather than conflict.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My arts practise revolves around curating exhibitions, arts writing, art-making and exhibiting my own art practice. As an artist-teacher, I continually engage in these activities whilst teaching, believing creative expression as vital to my professional identity. While currently lecturing in Arts Education at Melbourne University and teaching ESL at Cambridge International College, I also run my own creative enterprise, Purnima Creations, under which I operate a self-publishing service for individuals in the creative industry and work as a contractor on curating, arts management, arts writing/editing and education projects. My recent book, Inspiration Wild, was published by the Wildlife Art Museum of Australia in October 2014. Having been the Teacher Artmaker Project co-researcher for four years now, I find that this has provided me with an impetus to wholly immerse myself in the world of art and education. I continually exhibit my artworks annually. Furthermore, teaching skills feeds into my work as an art curator, arts manager and artist – I see these two traditionally disparate disciplines as inseparable. These photographs reflect my interest in Nature and culture. My art inspires my creative writing, reflecting my use of arts-centred pedagogy to develop students’ visual literacy skills.
GALLERY
Top Left to Bottom Right:
Kaleidoscope of Colours, 2014, digital photographic print, 30.5 x 61 cm
Living Among the Living, 2014, digital photographic print, 25.4 x 38 cm
Reflections from Rome, 2014, digital photographic print, 25.4 x 38 cm